You know, it's pretty amazing
there in Acts 13 that that message Paul preached is almost the same
message Peter preached on the day of Pentecost. Same text they
were using from the Old Testament. But why is that? Because all
God's preachers are preaching by one Spirit. By one Spirit. We're all getting our message
from the same place. The Lord has given the Spirit,
He's given the message. It's all from the same Word.
It's all of His grace. Now I ran out of time Sunday,
and I want to go back here to Romans 4 and look at the remaining
verses of this text I was in in Romans 4. The subject tonight
is the blessedness of grace. The blessedness of grace. We
saw how in Romans 3 Paul declared Christ alone made God's elect
righteous by His obedience. The righteousness of Christ is
imputed to us through faith, by God-given faith, through God-given
faith, and it's by grace. So, he said, we conclude that
a man's justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And then
he held up Abraham for the example to show that we don't make void
the law through faith, we establish the law through faith. Abraham
believed God 430 years before the law was given. He established
the law the same way all God's elect established the law, through
faith, through faith in Christ. Now, what I want us to see tonight
in these remaining verses, the Spirit of God declares that that
God's people are made righteous by the grace of God. What Christ
did for His people, and God giving us faith to believe, and God
imputing the righteousness of Christ to us, is all by God's
grace. Grace is unmerited, free favor. It's despite our sin. It's not based on anything in
us whatsoever. It's all of God, by grace are
you saved. all in Christ. He said, verse
4, let's read it again, Now to him that worketh is the reward
not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works. saying, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So our subject
is the blessedness of grace. The blessedness of grace. Now
first of all, if a person works, if he's working, trying to keep
the law, to be made righteous, then the reward cannot be of
grace. It has to be of debt. Look here
in verse 4, Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of
grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, the reward is reckoned
of grace to that man. It's all of grace to that man.
Salvation And everything included in salvation, that's a mighty
big word, that takes in every aspect of a sinner being saved. Salvation, election, redemption,
regeneration, justification, sanctification, preservation,
resurrection, glorification, all A to Z is by the grace of
God. Entirely by the grace of God
and not by the sinner's works. Not by the sinner's works. No
part of salvation is a co-effort between you and God. No part
of salvation is a co-effort between the sinner and God. Not any part. Not any part. Salvation is of
the Lord. That means it's all of the Lord. Psalm 100 and verse 3 says this,
Know ye that the Lord, He is God. He hath made us, not we
ourselves. We're His people, the sheep of
His pasture. He made us. I love this verse. Look at Romans 11. One of my
favorites in all of Scripture. Romans 11 verse 35. He says, Who hath first given
to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto Him again. For of Him, and
through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Everything's of Him, everything's
through Him, everything's to Him. and he gets all the glory
to the praise of his grace. Ephesians 1, let's go there,
Ephesians 1. And you know, when you read Ephesians
1, what's so good about it is every time you read it, you get
a little something out of it. You know, something that you
didn't see before, or maybe you saw it before, but the Lord just
blesses it to you in a greater way. Look here what he says,
Ephesians 1 verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us. with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace." We're talking about the blessedness of grace. God
did all that for His people according to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. And
then it says, "...in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace."
So, because salvation is all of grace, brethren, grace and
works are mutually exclusive. Now go with me to Romans 11 and
let's see what that means. Romans 11. They can never mix. It's not
a mixture of grace and works. Salvation is either all of grace,
For if a man is trying to be saved by his work, then the man
has to do it all. Now watch what he says here. But they never mix. Romans 11,
6. If by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace
is no more grace. That's what our text is saying.
If man works, then the reward cannot be reckoned of grace.
It has to be reckoned of debt. See, because there's no more
grace. But if it be of works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise,
work is no more work. Grace has to be all of grace. Works have to be all of works.
But they can't mix. They're mutually exclusive of
one another. Now, is there a difference between
a paycheck and a gift? Is there a difference between
a paycheck and a gift? When payday comes and you get
your paycheck, you worked for that and you earned that. That's
why it's given to you. That's not grace. You worked
for that. You worked for every cent and
that's why it's given to you. A gift, you didn't do anything. You didn't work for that. Somebody
went and bought it. Somebody brought it to you. Somebody
gave it to you freely because they wanted to. The salvation
is a gift of God. Eternal life is the gift of God. It's the gift of God's grace.
Freely given. Freely given. If a person works
for righteousness, it can't be grace. Now look at verse 4 again.
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned, not imputed
of grace, but of debt. Now, Sunday we saw this, God
only imputes to a man what the man really is. He only imputes
what a man's really been made. Now, read what that says. If
a man could establish the law, if he could establish the law
by his works, God would impute to him righteousness. God would
charge him with being what he is by his works, and that's righteous. But it wouldn't be by grace,
because the man earned it. The man worked. There's only
one ever established the law by his works and earned everything
God gave him, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only
one. He said, for this reason my father
loves me, I lay down my life for the sheep. He established
a law. He justified his people. He made
his people the righteousness of God. And everything he did
pleased God. And God gave him the reward of
his works. Of his works. He's the only man. The only man. The God-man mediator. You know, and when He gives you,
when the Lord gives you an understanding of this, He makes you to know
that Christ did that for all His elect. And God has made you
know it and imputed Christ's righteousness to you by His grace. And Christ did what He did by
His grace toward us. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He
became poor, that you through His poverty might be made rich. Look back up at verse 24, Romans
3.24. being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood to
declare His righteousness." Now let's talk about motive just
a moment. The motive of our heart is vital. The motive of our heart
is vital. And I want to say this because
all God's saints do good works. It's not that we don't do any
good works. All God's saints do good works. But a true work
of faith, a true work of faith, a work that justifies our faith
as being the genuine gift of God, knows two things in the
heart. Number one, we are unable to
establish the law. We're unable to save ourselves.
We're unable to regenerate ourselves or anyone else. We're unable
to give ourselves faith or anyone else. We're unable to bring forth
any fruit in ourselves or in anybody else. We're unable to
be made righteous by the works of the law. This is the number
one thing that a work of faith involves. You know that about
yourself. And number two, you know this, Christ alone is able. He alone is able. He alone established
the law. He alone did for his people what
we couldn't do for ourselves. This is involved in every work
of faith. James gave Abraham and Rahab
as examples. Abraham sacrificed his son, his
only son Isaac, believing God is able to raise him from the
dead. hid those spies, lied to the
king's men, and sent the spies out another way. That was a work
of faith. She believed God was able to
save her. And the token she had assuring her she would be saved
by God's grace was that scarlet line in the window, the blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ. By grace, the Holy Spirit has
taught God's saints that we're unable to establish the law.
He's taught you that. We were unable to put away our
sin. He's taught us that. And He's taught us Christ not
only was able, but that Christ has accomplished it. He has accomplished
it for all God's elect. So the new motive that God's
put in our heart, the new motive that's in the heart of those
truly sanctified, that's what sanctification involves, is being
taught these things. So the new motive that God puts
in the new heart is, Faith in Christ. This is involved in every
true work of faith. It's done through faith in Christ,
believing He alone is able, and it's constrained by His love
for us. It's not a work to be made righteous. It's constrained by His love
for what He's already done for us. We believe that by the grace
of God, He sent His Son, and His Son made us the righteousness
of God in Himself on the cross. And so the works we do are done
from a motive of gratitude for Him, love to Him for what He's
already done for us, and already making us righteous and holy
with God. But if a man's motive, if the
motive's in his heart, is that he's trying to make himself righteous
by his works, if that's the motive in the heart, he's totally out
of the realm of grace. He's under law. He's under works. He's a legalist. He's not of
grace whatsoever. He's seeking to indebt God to
himself. That's what his motive is. That's what he really believes
in his heart. God owes him something because of what he's done. Now
let's go back to our illustration of a gift. Someone gives you
a gift. But you refuse to receive it
freely and you insist that you're going to pay for it. And you
whip out your money and you give them your money and you insist
they take your money and you pay for that gift. When you do
that, it ceases to be a gift. You've insulted the giver. It
ceases to be a gift. Now you've paid for it. Brethren,
if a man's motive is to make himself righteous by his works,
it's totally out of the realm of grace. He's insulting God
by what he's done. He's insulting Christ by what
he's doing. He's not only not establishing
a law and not making himself righteous and not justifying
himself, he's insulting God by what he's doing, by trying to
come to God by the works of the law. He's trying to indebt God
to pay him what he thinks he's earned. And he's totally out
of the realm of grace. That's what Paul told the Galatians.
Go over to Galatians chapter 5. The legalists told the Galatian
believers. The legalists came to these believers
already sanctified, given a pure heart to behold Christ as their
righteousness. Oh, Christ is their holiness
and their redemption, had the wisdom of Christ, and these men
came and said, it's okay that you believe on Christ, but here's
where it's law. They said it was a necessity. It's necessary that you be circumcised
and keep the law, given at Sinai, or you cannot be saved. Now you
listen carefully to me, brethren. Listen very carefully. Whether
men say works of the law are necessary for justification or
for sanctification, whichever one, when the motive of a man's
heart is to make himself something before God by his works, whether
it's to be righteous or holy, When he's trying to make himself
something by his works, or if he's even just trying to contribute
a part to Christ's work, he's totally out of the realm of grace.
He's under the law. He's under the works. He's under
the curse. This is what Paul said, Galatians 5.2, Behold,
I, Paul, say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall
profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are
fallen from grace." You are out of the realm of grace entirely.
Go to Galatians 2 and look at verse 21. Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. That's how serious it is. I said
if somebody gives you a gift freely and you try to work for
it, you insult the giver. That is the ultimate insult,
and it is men every day in religion who outwardly are very moral,
but they are in their heart thinking they're indebting God to either
save them or to give them a great reward in heaven greater than
somebody else. And what they're doing is they're
insulting God, and they're counting the blood of Christ a vain thing. Now, our text deals with justification,
but when it's being applied to us, justification and sanctification
are inseparable. Religious folks say they're not
working to be made righteous. I've heard so many religious
folks, when you quote Romans 10, Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that I believe. I've heard so
many say, but that's for righteousness, not for holiness. He's not the
end of the law for holiness. Well, listen to me. When men are saying sanctification
is partly by God's work and partly by man's work, that's entirely
to deny grace altogether. That's entirely to be under the
law, under works, a debtor to do the whole law for justification
and for sanctification. If the motive of the heart in
any work is to make ourselves anything before God, justified
or holy, to make ourselves anything, then we're falling from grace. We're not of grace whatsoever.
Christ profits us nothing and we're debtors to keep the whole
law of God. Now, let me be very clear. What's the difference
between justification and sanctification? What is the difference? Justification
is what Christ did to free his people from guilt before the
law of God, to make us righteous according to the law of God before
the just judge of heaven and earth. That's what he was doing
for us on the cross. But brethren, sanctification
is holiness. It involves the heart, the inward
man. It's so vitally connected because
what Christ did for His people, He did from a holy heart. And
Hebrews 10 tells us that it's by Christ fulfilling the will
of God for His people that we are sanctified. And He did it
all from a holy heart. He did it all from a holy heart
on behalf of His elect. Now when He comes to you and
me, and regenerates us. And He works grace in our heart.
When He truly sanctifies us, Christ is made to us sanctification. That's when He gives you a holy
heart in regeneration. He enters in by the Spirit, Christ
does, and Christ creates a new Spirit in us, and He is the holiness
of the new man within us. And when He does that, you're
holy. You're holy. You're going to grow up just
like you grew up when you were born, but you're not going to
be more holy. You're holy. But here's the thing,
by this sanctifying work He does in us, He makes us know, number
one, we're unable to justify or sanctify ourselves by our
works. He makes you know that. You couldn't
make yourself be born again. You couldn't give yourself faith.
You couldn't make yourself holy. He makes you know He did that.
You were unable. And He also makes you know you
were unable to justify yourself from all your sins and be righteous
before God by your works. And He makes you know that He's
able to do both. Christ becomes your righteousness
and your sanctification. And all this is through Him doing
this work in the heart. And when He does that, brethren,
you look away entirely from yourself to Christ. to Christ. To have no confidence in the
flesh is to not put confidence in your flesh if you do what
you should do. Don't put confidence in your
flesh. But if a man starts getting his assurance that because he
did what he should do, that's confidence in the flesh. But
it's also confidence in the flesh if you get discouraged and depressed
when you sin. Because Christ, what He's going
to make you do is look entirely away from yourself to Him in
whom we are righteous and are holy. And the way He does that
is by Him being in you, turning you, your new man, to Him. That's sanctification, turning
you to Him so that you see He is your sanctification and He
is your justification. I want that to be plain. Is that
clear? I don't want it to be a doctrine.
This is Christ we're talking about. You know, in our city
government, and just out here in town, in your town where you
live, who does the law condemn? It condemns whoever breaks the
law. That's who the law speaks to is whoever broke it. It's
the same with God's law. If a man's trying to sanctify
himself by his works, or trying to justify himself by his works,
he's under the law. And the law speaks to him. Look
back up there at verse 19, Romans 3.19. We know that what doing
things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law. You that are called by grace, you're not under the
law. You're in the grace. But a man is trying to work to
make himself anything. He's under the law. And the law
speaks to him that every mouth may be stopped and all the world
become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. Now I want you to notice this
next word in our text. This is my second point. My first
point We're not made righteous by works, it's by grace, or else
it would, if it's by works, it's a debt owed. It's got to be freely
by grace, freely by grace, they can't mix. Now notice this word
reward, verse 4. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. Now right here,
the reward he's talking about is the righteousness of Christ. That's the reward he's talking
about. And that is eternal life. To have the righteousness of
Christ is to have Christ, is to have eternal life. That's
the reward he's talking about. is righteousness not imputed
of grace, but of debt. If a man worked for it, it wouldn't
be of grace, it would be of debt. But for those that are truly
sanctified in the heart by the Holy Spirit, we believe on Christ. And the reward, the reward is
that God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us without our works. without our works. It's through
faith in Christ. It's without our works. God gives
us eternal life in His Son. But here's what I want to say
to you. Men are always talking about rewards in heaven. For
the believer in all things, in every aspect of salvation, Christ
is the reward. Christ is the reward. The reward
is wisdom. Christ has made to us wisdom.
For a believer, the reward is righteousness. Christ is righteousness
to the believer. My righteousness is my Lord,
my Savior. The reward is sanctification,
being made holy. Christ is my holiness. If a man
says, could you imagine standing before God and saying, Who's
your holiness? And you say, well, it's partly
Christ, but it's partly me. You think God's going to receive
that man? No. Christ is my holiness. He's my sanctification. He's
my reward. The reward is redemption from
the curse of the law. Christ is redemption unto us. He's my redeemer who redeemed
me. The reward is eternal life. Christ
is the life. He's my life. He's my eternal
life. The reward is heaven. Christ is heaven to the believer. He's heaven to the believer.
The reward is salvation. Christ is salvation. I don't
ever want to preach to you. I'm not trying to just convince
you of a doctrine. Men go to hell believing right
doctrine. I want you to know Christ. I
want you to know Him. He's everything to the believer. And He's given to us by grace. And everything He is, everything
He's accomplished, is all given to guilty, undeserving, ungodly
sinners by grace, brethren, by grace. Now lastly, here's the blessedness
of grace. Here's the blessedness of grace.
God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us through faith
without our works. And here's what all is included,
verse 5. He says, But to him that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness. Are you the ungodly? Have you ever been the ungodly?
Did you sin in Adam? Did he make you ungodly? Is your
sin nature, right now, where you sit, in your flesh, is no
good thing? That means it's ungodly. By God's grace, He saves the
ungodly. He justifieth the ungodly. By God's grace, He makes us willing
to believe on Christ that justifieth the ungodly. All is by God's
grace. It's not by our works, brethren.
He elected His people unto salvation. He chose us freely, not based
on anything in us, but by the grace of God. Christ came forth
and redeemed us by His grace. The Spirit of God regenerates
us and gifts us with faith and love and meekness and temperance
and all of these gifts that are the fruit of the Spirit. He does
it by grace. And you're preserved by the grace
of God. And one day you'll be raised
from the dead by the grace of God. And you'll be given a glorified
body by the grace of God. And before everybody you'll be
declared the righteousness that Christ has made you by the grace
of God. And you fall, you, the crown
of life is life. That's what the crown is. It's
life and that life is Christ. And so you know what we're going
to do with whatever crown God gives us? We're throwing it at
His feet and we're giving Him all the glory because He's the
only one that deserves it. If God made you sit on His right
hand or on His left hand, you know what you'd do? You'd say,
It's of grace. You wouldn't exalt yourself over
anybody. You wouldn't say, I deserve this.
I worked for this. I earned this reward. No. You'd
say, I don't know why it gave me this. It's by grace. It's
by grace. That has to be the reason. God's people are not looking
for a heaven where we're exalting ourselves over others. Everybody
there will have the same righteousness, the same holiness, it'll be the
same Redeemer, we'll be created by the same Holy Spirit, it'll
all be the work of God, and it'll all be by grace, and we will
be giving God all the glory in Him alone. Him alone. David knew
this blessedness and all God's saints do. He said, verse 6,
even as David also describes the blessedness of the man to
whom God imputeth righteousness without works. The blessedness
is that God imputes you to be righteous. He declares you righteous
without you doing one thing. Just like Abraham was imputed,
charged with perfectly establishing the law when he was 430 years
before it was ever given. Blessed, this is what he says,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins
are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Brethren, I said to you, when
God imputes, He's not treating you as if, it's because it's
what Christ has made you to be. And God declares all our iniquities
past, present, and future are forgiven. He said, I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, their sins, and their iniquities,
and I will remember no more. It's God continually forgiving
us, though we have sinned against Him. It's Him continually forgiving
us that breaks our heart, that corrects us, that increases our
faith in Him, makes us see He's faithful to His Word, makes us
know He's really saving us by grace. It's what all is involved
in the fear of God, brethren, and it's all by the forgiveness
of God. If God should mark iniquities, who could stand? But there's
forgiveness with God that He may be feared. That makes you
believe Him. That makes you hit your face
in the dust before Him. That makes you trust Him alone.
That makes you praise Him alone. That makes you follow Him alone. That's the greatest discipline
there is, is the forgiveness of God. Blessed are they whose sins are
covered. He said, I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgression,
and as a cloud thy sins return to me, for I have redeemed thee.
That's what he said. Every time you depart, prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it. What's going to bring you back?
He brings you to hear this gospel again. And He says, ìI have blotted
out as a thick cloud thy transgression, as a cloud thy sins. Return to
Me, for I have redeemed thee. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin.î
He did it. Look at verse 8, ìBlessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.î God only imputes
what is fact. He only imputes what a man is.
And if God will not impute sin to you, believer, here's why.
Before God, before the all-seeing eye of God, before the law, before
the just judge, by Christ Jesus, you have no sin to impute. That's good news. All I see in
me is sin. But before God, because of what
Christ has done, He will not impute sin to His people because
there is none to impute. Listen, as far as the East is
from the West, so far as He removed our transgressions from us. In
those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. And
the sins of Judah, they shall not be found, for I will pardon
whom I reserve." Does that mean all my sin? That means all your
sin. Go over to Romans 5. Let's end
with this. Look here at Romans 5. The parentheses,
after he declares verse 12, we all died in Adam, then he shows
some differences between Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness.
He shows us some differences. Here's a difference in verse
15. He says, but not as the offense, so also as the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded to many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one offense
to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto
justification. He condemns you because of one
sin. He's forgiven put away many, many, many, many offenses that
we've committed and justified us. For if by one man's offense
death reigned by one, much more, they which receive the abundance
of grace and the gift of righteousness, that's the reward. It's all about
grace. They shall reign in life by one
Jesus Christ. That's the blessedness of grace,
brethren. I pray God bless that to your
heart. Amen. Brother Greg.